Technical Field
The present invention relates to a device-to-device communication, and more particularly, to an apparatus for performing a communication using Wi-Fi Direct and method thereof.
Background Art
Device-to-device (hereinafter abbreviated D2D) communications may include Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, Zigbee and the like. In this case, Wi-Fi is ‘Wireless LAN’ and indicates a communication network for performing high-speed Internet nearby an access device (AP) installed spot. Wi-Fi Direct is a new version of an existing Wi-Fi and indicates a communication technology for connecting devices to each other by Wi-Fi without Internet network. And, Wi-Fi Direct does not require a hot spot, a router, an access point (AP) and the like. If a device supportive of Wi-Fi Direct is provided, devices are directly connected to each other to exchange files or share a communication network.
Thus, Wi-Fi Direct is a sort of a direct communication between Wi-Fi loaded devices without an AP (access point) supportive of an access between Wi-Fi alliance devices.
Wi-Fi Direct adopts a system of connecting two devices to each other one to one. Namely, by Wi-Fi Direct, a smartphone and a smartphone, a notebook and a mouse, or a tablet PC and a printer are directly connected to each other. By Wi-Fi Direct, a photo, a music or a video saved in one smartphone is easily transmitted to another smartphone, a document or photo saved in a tablet PC is directly printed, contacts are synchronized between a PC and a smartphone, or game machines are directly connected to each other for enjoying a game.
Several devices can be connected to a single device. For instance, a monitor, a printer, a digital camera and a mouse are collectively connected to a notebook computer supportive of Wi-Fi Direct. In doing so, if the notebook computer is connected to an existing Wi-Fi network, other devices connected to the notebook computer can make Internet accesses to the Wi-Fi network in the same manner. Yet, a one-to-many system is optionally provided.
Meanwhile, when an initial connection is established, Wi-Fi Direct equipments mutually determine an equipment supposed to operate as an AP. To this end, a method of connecting devices in Wi-Fi Direct is described as follows. First of all, as Wi-Fi Direct supportive devices transceive control messages in-between, they can mutually recognize that which device supports Wi-Fi Direct and informations required for a mutual access are delivered through control messages. In doing so, two different Wi-Fi Direct devices perform a procedure for negotiating that a prescribed one of the Wi-Fi Direct devices plays a role as a group owner. In this case, the group owner means a device that plays a role as an AP by gaining a control over a connected device belonging to a device group configuring a Wi-Fi Direct network. According to the negotiation, a group owner role is determined in a manner of exchanging a group owner intent value of each of the two devices.
However, since an existing Wi-Fi Direct connection generally determines a group owner by comparing preset group owner intent values set to transmit random values, it may cause a problem that an efficient network connection is not available (e.g., controlling a specific device to become a group owner, etc.).